First, are you talking about the ken smith soapbar or jazz style pickup?

I have alot of experience with the soapbar style pickups, much less with the stacked j-pickups, so I'll confine my opinions to the soapbars.

They are ceramic magnet, passive pickups that sound great with or without a preamp. They don't sound anything like emg's. While they are much closer to Bartolini's, they don't sound like bartolini's. Similar to Peter Parker's comments above, I find them to be very midrangey, without the bottom of a bartolini (although they seem to give more bottom end on a neck-thru than a bolt-on). They are very, very, very growly and have their own unique "boing" when plucked hard or slapped. Personally, I think they sound more like Wal pickups than anything else.

IMHO, because of the midrange growl, I think they would be outstanding pickups for a fretless bass, especially if the bridge pickup is located as close to the bridge as Ken puts his.

If I had to find a fault with them at all is that they could use a little more beef at the bottom end. But then again, they would probably lose something in the midrange if you added more bottom.

It really is the soapbars that i'm interested in. I'm looking around for pickups that should go in 7 string fretless. I haven't worked out the details of this one yet, both it should be a maple neckthrou with an ebony fretboard and 35 inch scale... not much different than a Smith, but not quite the same.

To tell you the truth, I already have a 7 string in the making. I've ordered a set of Seymour Duncan for this one... not sure if I should stick with that choice for the next project

Was in a hurry there, hence the short post. Yep, I'm trying to decide right now if I want a third Hanewinckel bass, or if I want him to build me a guitar to replace my PRS (which is very nice but has a few things I don't like).

The Clover sounds very good but I don't like playing it. 36" scale, the back of the graphite neck could be better (satin finish would be nice), spacing is too wide, and it's not a 6. The overall shape doesn't fit my body as well as the Hanewinckels either.